


You

by Avid Moron (Nevermore9)



Category: Gravity Falls, ParaNorman (2012)
Genre: M/M, Older Characters, Parapines, Short One Shot, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 00:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6172051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevermore9/pseuds/Avid%20Moron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Norman watches Dipper on the porch, hunched over with a tight face. He'd have never realized they'd be like this so soon, old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zero_kun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zero_kun/gifts).



> This is based off the story "Yours", only not as good. Thanks to Zero_kun and everyone else who encouraged me.

Norman lugged a great chubby pumpkin along the grassy hillside, settling the weight of it on his knee and limping with the other foot behind him. It was surely worthy of any Charlie Brown special, or so Dipper thought. He was the one who had handpicked every orange face, tall, skinny, fat, squat, Dipper had certainly collected a colorful cast of spookums. Of course Norman was tasked with the manual labor of bearing their burden to actually get them home without any casualties. 

Dipper fiddled on the porch with lighting candles, but only having the flames dance around his fingers before puffing themselves out. The last oversized pumpkin settled beside his countless other friend's on the stoop. Norman, finishing his sworn duty, snatched a matchstick from its case and brought a particularly stubborn candlewick to life. Dipper grumbled something about humidity.

"How about we just carve the things?" Dipper grunted.

Norman's pumpkins held artful emotion, two wore jagged zombie mouths, and beamed deep button eyes, while two smiled wicked smirks beneath a bat nose and wild bloodshot peepers. Dipper's, on the other hand, were constructed of simple triangles and circles, crudely askew because of the reluctance that the cleaver showed of actually staying in his hand. Dipper dropped the knife over and over again, the handle jumping or slipping from his palm each time. After perhaps the twentieth fumble Dipper accepted Norman's careful assistance, begrudgingly. Dipper mumbled something about long nights.

"I like 'em." Norman mused, observing the grimacing heads him and his partner had spent the last half-hour or so working to paint across previously expressionless pumpkins.

"Mine're terrible." Dipper sighed curiously, apparently not seeing the appreciation his counterpart did. "Can't do much right anymore, can I?" He gave a bitter chuckle, not meaning to come off as depressing as he seemed to.

"When they're lit." Norman said. "We just have to light them first."

Inside the white sided, American home, Norman passed by the wall sized shelf of thoroughly paged leather books and pamphlets, ranging from crytozoological mysteries to domestic "How to Cook"s. On the mahogany wood dining table Norman spotted last month's mail shuffled carelessly, a cigarette ad, invitation to the Bizarre Science Convention, and a single letter torn open from its envelope. It was a card, sporting a happy pink puppy on the front, reading: 

"Dear Bro, feeling so excited. I've dreamed of humiliating you at this moment for a while. Get ready for the rockingest, 80s-est party of the century!  
P.S. Congrats, I never thought you'd be getting it together with a guy before me.  
P.P.S. I hope you got the sculpture I crafted especially for you, I used extra, extra, special rainbow glitter, though they could be sprinkles. Love Mabel!"  
And, tucked away in the corner, "Also from Stan."

Norman brushed the card aside, laughing mentally to himself. He fished through a drawer and pulled up an old lighter, trimmed with silver, worth more than a pretty dime. It's not like he'd ever think to use this again, looking out to Dip leaning against the porch rail, the lighter might as well have been junk. So Norman shrugged and fiddled with the cap under his thumb as he took down several musty, dusty candles from the fireplace mantel. They were well rounded for candles, nice, but not anything worthy of aristocracy or fancy things like that, though he'd expected less as a wedding gift from the parents-in-law who never really warmed their hearts for him, or Dipper, afterwards. Even Dipper's great uncle Stanley had given them matching shirts from the Mystery Shack, more meaningful than candles he'd say. That being the case, he could count himself lucky; maybe burning the damn candles would help something someway or another.

Dipper swayed back and forth on the step, sleepy eyed, as if an unheard tune was moving him with wisps of music. The evening was warm for the time of day and the season, trees were fully naked yet stood perfectly content in the calm stillness of the gentle air. Norman dropped in wedding candles like dead weight, setting fire to each horrid grin and frown so that they glowed passionately atop the white porch railing. He took a seat beside a slouched Dipper, glancing back to the chorus-line of pumpkin; Norman figured that their whimsical, welcoming tone sort of defeated their whole original purpose, but he didn't mind.

"See, just had to light them is all." Norman said, itching his fingers against his pant leg.

"Yeah." Dipper considered, staring out toward a shiny full moon, lingering on the horizon's edge. "I suppose they're pretty ok."

"You're not even looking at them."

"Don't need to." Dipper smirked, giving his partner a heartfelt sidelong glance. "Don't need to." He repeated for himself.

Norman raised himself with a stretching groan. "How's dinner sound, Babe?" He was at the front door, already warming his hands for the oven. Mac and cheese was on his mind, Dipper loved that. Mabel had made mac and cheese when they'd first started "experimenting" with each other. Norman could only hope his was just as good.

Dipper grumbled, shifting in his seat, he tended to remind Norman of a grumpy old man when he got this way. "You don't have to keep making those for me, Norman. You know." He huffed, fixing his jaw square on his face.

An encumbered sigh hung on the porch awhile. "I'm tired."

"Now, I didn't tell you not to eat! Norm, I'm…" He was cut off by a quiet voice, sounding breathless, a little desperate.

"I'm not hungry, just tired. Come to bed with me."

Dipper slid under the covers, to Norman the sheets wrapped him coldly in a shell turning to ice from the touch of the space beside him. Experience reassured him it wouldn't be too hard to fall asleep though. The grandfather clock chimed sweetly in the adjacent hallway. Norman tossed over on the mattress, then turned in the thick, frozen sheets. He reached a hand out for Dipper, a dumb, optimistic spot in the furtherest crevice of Norman's brain told him he'd find warmth but he didn't. It was as if his fingers swept through a gust of wind taking the shape of a man, empty. What was the point of seeing ghosts if he couldn't touch them, hold them? Norman internally slapped himself, mumbling something to his lazy partner about a stiff drink.

Past the window pumpkins glowed a yellow aura. Norman had thumbed the refrigerator yet couldn't bring himself to actually stomach a glass, or a bottle, tonight. He wanted to slam his head into the kitchen table, become a cripple on his death bed, an amnesiac. How long was this suppose to go on for? Pumpkins were taunting him from the other side, like laughing tombstones tormenting his soul, caged in his body. Norman felt like a hopeless child in the corner.

Headlights briefly flooded the dark recesses of the quiet room, casting shadows playfully about. Norman glance upward, hearing the floorboards stir above him. He pushed back his chair, wanting nothing more than to meander back Dipper's way. So, he supposed that antique lighter would come in handy after all. In the bottom drawer, buried beneath a flashlight and a glue bottle, Norman ressurected an old cigarette carton he'd been honestly meaning to throw away and smoked, watching the pumpkins.


End file.
